Canadian Gold Miner Gabriel Resources Stopped in Romania - puts 200 Million (usd) Investment in Peril
Background: In 2000 an Australian-Romanian gold mine caused a massive cyanide disaster that left the whole region poisoned for 20 years. The new company (Gabriel Resources) put out their own propaganda video "Mine Your Own Business" in which they point out that it's the Hungarians who try to stop Romanians from doing "development". They also assault George Soros who's a hero in Eastern Europe. The mining company tried using ethnic tension for monetary gain and in this part of the world this is very irresponsible behavior and shows that mining companies have no regard of indigenous cultures and would do anything to exploit local resources.
(For more of the same see: Canadian Mining Industry Run Amok )
Romania now plans to ban cyanide leach mining in the country which will extinguish the threat from predatory Canadian gold mining corporations for the foreseeable future.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Gold Futures: A PBS documentary of Canadian gold miner intimidation, psychological pressure, propaganda & forced relocation in Romania’s Rosia Montana
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Canadian Mining Industry Boss Kicks Back $30 Million to Bill Clinton Charity After Inking Half Billion Dollar Uranium Mining Deal In Kazakhstan
Bill Clinton and the Canadian Mining Magnate
Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.
Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.
Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.
Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.
The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.
Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.
Mr. Giustra was invited to accompany the former president to Almaty just as the financier was trying to seal a deal he had been negotiating for months.
In separate written responses, both men said Mr. Giustra traveled with Mr. Clinton to Kazakhstan, India and China to see first-hand the philanthropic work done by his foundation.
A spokesman for Mr. Clinton said the former president knew that Mr. Giustra had mining interests in Kazakhstan but was unaware of “any particular efforts” and did nothing to help. Mr. Giustra said he was there as an “observer only” and there was “no discussion” of the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev or Mr. Clinton.
But Moukhtar Dzhakishev, president of Kazatomprom, said in an interview that Mr. Giustra did discuss it, directly with the Kazakh president, and that his friendship with Mr. Clinton “of course made an impression.” Mr. Dzhakishev added that Kazatomprom chose to form a partnership with Mr. Giustra’s company based solely on the merits of its offer.
After The Times told Mr. Giustra that others said he had discussed the deal with Mr. Nazarbayev, Mr. Giustra responded that he “may well have mentioned my general interest in the Kazakhstan mining business to him, but I did not discuss the ongoing” efforts.
As Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign has intensified, Mr. Clinton has begun severing financial ties with Ronald W. Burkle, the supermarket magnate, and Vinod Gupta, the chairman of InfoUSA, to avoid any conflicts of interest. Those two men have harnessed the former president’s clout to expand their businesses while making the Clintons rich through partnership and consulting arrangements.
Mr. Clinton has vowed to continue raising money for his foundation if Mrs. Clinton is elected president, maintaining his connections with a wide network of philanthropic partners.
Mr. Giustra said that while his friendship with the former president “may have elevated my profile in the news media, it has not directly affected any of my business transactions.”
Mining colleagues and analysts agree it has not hurt. Neil MacDonald, the chief executive of a Canadian merchant bank that specializes in mining deals, said Mr. Giustra’s financial success was partly due to a “fantastic network” crowned by Mr. Clinton. “That’s a very solid relationship for him,” Mr. MacDonald said. “I’m sure it’s very much a two-way relationship because that’s the way Frank operates.”
Foreseeing Opportunities
Mr. Giustra made his fortune in mining ventures as a broker on the Vancouver Stock Exchange, raising billions of dollars and developing a loyal following of investors. Just as the mining sector collapsed, Mr. Giustra, a lifelong film buff, founded the Lion’s Gate Entertainment Corporation in 1997. But he sold the studio in 2003 and returned to mining.
Mr. Giustra foresaw a bull market in gold and began investing in mines in Argentina, Australia and Mexico. He turned a $20 million shell company into a powerhouse that, after a $2.4 billion merger with Goldcorp Inc., became Canada’s second-largest gold company.
With a net worth estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Giustra began looking for ways to put his wealth to good use. Meeting Mr. Clinton, and learning about the work his foundation was doing on issues like AIDS treatment in poor countries, “changed my life,” Mr. Giustra told The Vancouver Sun.
The two men were introduced in June 2005 at a fund-raiser for tsunami victims at Mr. Giustra’s Vancouver home and hit it off right away. They share a love of history, geopolitics and music — Mr. Giustra plays the trumpet to Mr. Clinton’s saxophone. Soon the dapper Canadian was a regular at Mr. Clinton’s side, as they flew around the world aboard Mr. Giustra’s plane.
Philanthropy may have become his passion, but Mr. Giustra, now 50, was still hunting for ways to make money.
Exploding demand for energy had helped revitalize the nuclear power industry, and uranium, the raw material for reactor fuel, was about to become a hot commodity. In late 2004, Mr. Giustra began talking to investors, and put together a company that would eventually be called UrAsia Energy Ltd.
Kazakhstan, which has about one-fifth of the world’s uranium reserves, was the place to be. But with plenty of suitors, Kazatomprom could be picky about its partners.
“Everyone was asking Kazatomprom to the dance,” said Fadi Shadid, a senior stock analyst covering the uranium industry for Friedman Billings Ramsey, an investment bank. “A second-tier junior player like UrAsia — you’d need all the help you could get.”
The Cameco Corporation, the world’s largest uranium producer, was already a partner of Kazatomprom. But when Cameco expressed interest in the properties Mr. Giustra was already eying, the government’s response was lukewarm. “The signals we were getting was, you’ve got your hands full,” said Gerald W. Grandey, Cameco president.
For Cameco, it took five years to “build the right connections” in Kazakhstan, Mr. Grandey said. UrAsia did not have that luxury. Profitability depended on striking before the price of uranium soared.
“Timing was everything,” said Sergey Kurzin, a Russian-born businessman whose London-based company was brought into the deal by UrAsia because of his connections in Kazakhstan. Even with those connections, Mr. Kurzin said, it took four months to arrange a meeting with Kazatomprom.
In August 2005, records show, the company sent an engineering consultant to Kazakhstan to assess the uranium properties. Less than four weeks later, Mr. Giustra arrived with Mr. Clinton.
Mr. Dzhakishev, the Kazatomprom chief, said an aide to Mr. Nazarbayev informed him that Mr. Giustra talked with Mr. Nazarbayev about the deal during the visit. “And when our president asked Giustra, ‘What do you do?’ he said, ‘I’m trying to do business with Kazatomprom,’ ” Mr. Dzhakishev said. He added that Mr. Nazarbayev replied, “Very good, go to it.”
Mr. Clinton’s Kazakhstan visit, the only one of his post-presidency, appears to have been arranged hastily. The United States Embassy got last-minute notice that the president would be making “a private visit,” said a State Department official, who said he was not authorized to speak on the record.
The publicly stated reason for the visit was to announce a Clinton Foundation agreement that enabled the government to buy discounted AIDS drugs. But during a news conference, Mr. Clinton wandered into delicate territory by commending Mr. Nazarbayev for “opening up the social and political life of your country.”
In a statement Kazakhstan would highlight in news releases, Mr. Clinton declared that he hoped it would achieve a top objective: leading the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which would confer legitimacy on Mr. Nazarbayev’s government.
“I think it’s time for that to happen, it’s an important step, and I’m glad you’re willing to undertake it,” Mr. Clinton said.
A Speedy Process
Mr. Clinton’s praise was odd, given that the United States did not support Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid. (Late last year, Kazakhstan finally won the chance to lead the security organization for one year, despite concerns raised by the Bush administration.) Moreover, Mr. Clinton’s wife, who sits on a Congressional commission with oversight of such matters, had also voiced skepticism.
Eleven months before Mr. Clinton’s statement, Mrs. Clinton co-signed a commission letter to the State Department that sounded “alarm bells” about the prospect that Kazakhstan might head the group. The letter stated that Kazakhstan’s bid “would not be acceptable,” citing “serious corruption,” canceled elections and government control of the news media.
In a written statement to The Times, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman said the former president saw “no contradiction” between his statements in Kazakhstan and the position of Mrs. Clinton, who said through a spokeswoman, “Senator Clinton’s position on Kazakhstan remains unchanged.”
Noting that the former president also met with opposition leaders in Almaty, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman said he was only “seeking to suggest that a commitment to political openness and to fair elections would reflect well on Kazakhstan’s efforts to chair the O.S.C.E.”
But Robert Herman, who worked for the State Department in the Clinton administration and is now at Freedom House, a human rights group, said the former president’s statement amounted to an endorsement of Kazakhstan’s readiness to lead the group, a position he called “patently absurd.”
“He was either going off his brief or he was sadly mistaken,” Mr. Herman said. “There was nothing in the record to suggest that they really wanted to move forward on democratic reform.”
Indeed, in December 2005, Mr. Nazarbayev won another election, which the security organization itself said was marred by an “atmosphere of intimidation” and “ballot-box stuffing.”
After Mr. Nazarbayev won with 91 percent of the vote, Mr. Clinton sent his congratulations. “Recognizing that your work has received an excellent grade is one of the most important rewards in life,” Mr. Clinton wrote in a letter released by the Kazakh embassy. Last September, just weeks after Kazakhstan held an election that once again failed to meet international standards, Mr. Clinton honored Mr. Nazarbayev by inviting him to his annual philanthropic conference.
Within 48 hours of Mr. Clinton’s departure from Almaty on Sept. 7, Mr. Giustra got his deal. UrAsia signed two memorandums of understanding that paved the way for the company to become partners with Kazatomprom in three mines.
The cost to UrAsia was more than $450 million, money the company did not have in hand and had only weeks to come up with. The transaction was finalized in November, after UrAsia raised the money through the largest initial public offering in the history of Canada’s Venture Exchange.
Here is the full article.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ascendant Copper Loses Mining Concessions in Ecuador- deliberately mislead not only the Ecuadorian government and the public, but their own investors.
Ecuador’s government announced on Friday that it was revoking Ascendant Copper’s mining concessions for the controversial Junin Project.
Mining and Petroleum Minister Galo Chiriboga told reporters that the government decided to revoke a total of 587 mining concessions for reasons that include companies’ failure to pay proper fees on concessions.
“As an Intag resident, I am ecstatic to be rid of a source of conflict that was tearing our communities apart,” said Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag (DECOIN), a local grassroots environmental organization. “In our particular case, it is a clear triumph of community-based resistance over the destructive power of transnational corporations.”
Ascendant Copper accused the government of leftist President Rafael Correa of bowing to pressure from environmental groups. John Haigh, Ascendant's investor relations chief, said that the Ecuadorian government’s actions were “astounding”, “absolute bologna” and that the decision was “rushed.”
“We feel that there is no validity in this at all…we are going to protect those concessions with every legal alternative open to us,” said Haigh.
The company also denies any wrongdoing. "According to Ascendant Copper's records, all concession payments regarding each of its projects have been made, on time, as stated by Ecuadorian law," the company stated. "The company has complied with all government requests, abided by all Ecuadorian mining regulations and remains in compliance with all laws."
Heads in The Sand, Hands in Violence
But the decision shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Ascendant. Just four months earlier the government ordered the company to suspend all activities at its Junin project for violating the country’s mining laws. The government also warned at the time that the company’s concessions could eventually be revoked.
"We will see how the facts evolve, but eventually this could lead to a revocation," Minister Chiriboga said at a press conference in September of 2007. "For those concessions that have violated legal and constitutional regulations...we will apply the law and that will be our mining industry policy."
Using the same tactic as they did this year, Ascendant immediately responded with a press release denying any wrong-doing. This suggests that either company officials are running their business with their heads in the sand, or more likely, that they are attempting to deliberately mislead not only the Ecuadorian government and the public, but their own investors as well.
The mining project, which would cause massive deforestation, climate change, and contamination of the local water supply in a part of Ecuador considered by scientists as a “global center of biodiversity,” has met resistance since the time the company bought the concessions. Human Rights Lawyers representing people affected by the project in Intag filed lawsuits claiming that the Ascendant’s purchase of the concessions were illegal because the government failed to consult with local communities as mandated by Article 88 of Ecuador’s constitution.
In addition, the company’s activities have caused social discord with local communities in the area and have been tainted by human rights abuses. In December of 2005, some residents upset over the government’s inability (or refusal) to protect their rights and interests, burnt down a building owned by the company (nobody was injured), mirroring actions taken a decade earlier against a Japanese company which left only after their camp was burnt down.
Then their have been local protests, marches in the capital and public decrees issued by local government officials demanding the company leave. But rather than respect the wishes of a majority of the local public, Ascendant chose to continue the battle, a decision which would eventually lead to violence.
In December, the Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU) (a human rights organization based in Ecuador) denounced violent actions by “paramilitaries” reportedly linked to the company. The paramilitaries wore camouflaged uniforms, were armed with machine guns and handguns, and used tear gas and fired shots at unarmed community members from Junin (some of which was captured on video(5 parts)).
That same month the United Nations decided to investigate whether pro-mining factions had framed DECOIN member Carlos Zorrilla for an alleged robbery and assault in order to silence mining opposition in the region. Zorrilla, who was found innocent of the charges, went into hiding minutes before his home was invaded by local police, some wearing ski masks and heavily armed. He remained in hiding for several months.
Then in July 2007, Amnesty International issued an action alert for ongoing death threats and attacks against mining opponents. These are just a few examples of high profile cases.
Changes Urgently Needed
With the government in the midst of re-writing the country's constitution through a popular assembly, more changes to mining laws can be expected.
“Large-scale mining needs to have clear rules, but the big question remains if we really want open-pit mining," said Alberto Acosta, head of the government-controlled assembly.
He suggested that other changes, in addition to banning open pit mining which what Ascendant wanted to use in Junin, would include prohibiting mining in nature reserves and requiring community consent for any mining project.
This departure from Ecuador’s previous subservience to transnational capital has the international business community seething. Luke Penseney, CEO of Ontario-based Markets Intelligence, that the government’s actions are dangerous. "You risk becoming a pariah, which is what Ecuador's in danger of becoming," said Penseney.
But Karyn Keenan, Program Officer at the Halifax Initiative, a Canadian Coalition working to create a global economy that prioritizes human rights, labor rights and environmental sustainability over narrow corporate interests, believes Ecuador’s recent actions should motivate the Canadian government to make changes to reign in the often irresponsible behavior of Canadian companies in the extractive industries abroad. She said that one thing which could be done is the adoption of recommendations made by the Canadian Roundtables on the Extractive Industries (something the government has thus far refused to do), a multi-stakeholder group that brought representatives of civil society and the business community together.
“The Ecuadorian example illustrates why it’s such a disappointment it hasn’t happened and why it’s so urgently needed,” said Keenan. “It’s a call for the Canadian government to make some policy changes.” In the meantime, Ecuadorians have more work to do.
“Until the government declares areas like the Toisan Range here in Intag, and the Condor Range in the south of the country as permanently free of mining, we will continue our struggle,” said Zorrilla. “Our main focus now is to support the national push to declare all of Ecuador free of large and medium scale metallic mining.”
Here is the full article.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Ecuador 'sending wrong message' by cancelling mining concessions, Canadian consultant says – people of Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru & Chile disagree
TORONTO - Ecuador is "sending the wrong message" to international mining companies by cancelling more than 500 mining concessions without starting a dialogue between government leaders and company stakeholders, a Canadian mining consultant says.
If the South American country doesn't "recognize the fact that there's an extended group of stakeholders, then you can never come to any kind of reasonable consideration," said Luke Penseney, CEO of Markets Intelligence in Mississauga, Ont.
"You risk becoming a pariah, which is what Ecuador's in danger of becoming." (which is fine with the people who live on the land)
Last week, Ecuador's government announced it had cancelled the mining concessions because certain companies neglected to pay a US$1 per hectare environmental conservation fee due at the end of last March.
While the country declined to name which companies were specifically affected, several Canadian miners with properties in Ecuador issued press releases letting investors know they were safe.
Ascendant Copper Corporation (TSX:ACX), Dynasty Metals & Mining Inc. (TSX:DMM), Plexmar Resources Inc. (TSXV:PLE) and Aurelian Resources Inc. (TSX:ARU) all put out statements Friday saying they have paid all necessary fees.
Ascendant's shares regained some of the ground lost on Friday, when they fell 28 per cent. They closed Monday at 17 cents, up two cents from Friday's close but down from 21 cents at Thursday's close.
Reports suggest that two of Ascendant Copper's concessions have been revoked, a suggestion the company denies..
"Ascendant has received no notification of annulment from the Government of Ecuador or the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, nor is it aware that any such notification exists," the company said in a release.
Ascendant claims that it has met all payments, though the government had already told the company it must stop operations at the project because it had gone against certain regulations.
"The market is already nervous about Ecuador's ongoing overhaul of mining policy," wrote Eric Zaunscherb, an analyst for Haywood Securities wrote in a note.
Some analysts are speculating that the problem could deepen.
"We're expecting . . . that they're increase concession taxes and maybe even require minimum expenditures to maintain that your property is in good standing," said David Stein, an analyst at Cormark Securities.
On Monday, Dynasty Metals rose three per cent, or 27 cents to $7.54 and Plexmar was up a penny to 14 cents at the Toronto Stock Exchange while Aurelian's shares closed at $8.10, down 19 cents from Friday's close.
Stein said despite the recent news, miners based in Ecuador still have it good.
"When you compare Equador to Peru or Chile or even North America, it's one of the cheapest places to operate right now. There's really no reason for that to be the case going forward," Stein said.
Ecuadorian government officials have been feeling pressure from environmentalists to tighten controls over its concessions because some said they were handing out too many agreements with foreign-based companies.
Some environmentalists also expressed concerns that the miners were polluting drinking water, which has been denied by the corporations.
It always is: Ok Tedi Environmental Disaster
"The government is responding to societal pressure, which is quite reasonable, but what it's not recognizing is that there are a group of stakeholders who include resource developers," Penseney said.
It's "the worst possible scenario other than to kick people out."
Here is the full article.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Peru to sign freetrade pact with Canada - set to become next victim of Canada's predatory mining industry?
Canadian Mining Company, Skye Resources, Burns Out Indigenous Mayan Villagers in GuatemalaOTTAWA -- Canada plans to announce today that it has wrapped up negotiations on a free-trade agreement with Peru, as the Harper government tries to gain ground in the global race to clinch preferential access to new markets.
The deal is Canada's second free-trade agreement in South America, after Chile, and gives Canadian businesses more unfettered access to a fast-growing continent.
International Trade Minister David Emerson expects to announce that a deal has been reached when he meets his Peruvian counterpart during World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, Switzerland, his office said.
Two-way annual trade with Peru is about $2.4-billion and the South American country is an important destination for Canadian capital, with about $2.9-billion invested in sectors such as mining and banking.
The Peru deal is Canada's second new free-trade deal in seven years, as the Harper government tries to catch up in the rush to sign free-trade agreements as global efforts at the World Trade Organization continue to flounder.
Previous Liberal governments began talks on at least seven new free-trade agreements and several investor protection deals. But they completed few; the last free-trade agreement they signed was with Costa Rica in 2001.
Mr. Emerson is also in Davos to formally sign the first free-trade deal the Harper government reached last year with Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, all members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and countries that don't belong to the 27-nation European Union.
The new accord could still be derailed if the Harper minority government doesn't get at least one opposition party to back the deal in Parliament.
Business groups hailed the two deals.
(Here is why: Canadian Mining Industry Run Amok)
"By improving market access for Canadian exporters and enhancing protection for Canadian investments, these agreements will benefit companies and workers in a wide range of sectors," said Thomas d'Aquino, head of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.
Here is the full article.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Anti-Mining Environmentalists Win Big in Argentina - Goldcorp Retaliates Following Argentine Tariff Move - Will Halt All Exploration Spending
Bullion giant Goldcorp Inc. says it will halt exploration spending in Argentina after the government imposed export duties on metals production, reversing a pledge to keep miners' tax rates stable for 30 years.
Vancouver-based Goldcorp owns a 37.5-per-cent stake in copper and gold mine Alumbrera, the largest mining operation in Argentina.
In late December, the Argentine government stunned the country's burgeoning mining industry, slapping a 10-per-cent tariff on base metals exports and a 5-per cent-levy on gold production, seeking a larger slice of miners' profits from record metals prices.
(See: 10 Things Canada Does Best - What Canada doesn't do best is hold domestic mining companies accountable for the damage they do abroad. , Possible Tax Evasion? Under-declaration of profits by mining companies costs Tanzania US$207 million )
In retaliation, Goldcorp has decided to put exploration efforts in Argentina on hold.
"I have already taken Argentina from the 2008 list of places I am going to go," Tim Miller, Goldcorp's vice-president in Central and South America, said in an interview.
(Now that is making a positive contribution to Argentina, as defined by its citizens: Esquel Celebrates One Year Anti-Gold Mining Referendum Anniversary)
"I have put it on hold. There are other places that are inviting foreign development and investment much more than Argentina," he said.
(Like Papua New Guinea and Guatemala: Canadian, Goldcorp's open pit, cyanide-leeching mine runs up against local opposition in Guatemala , Unregulated Gold Miners – Environmental Stewards or Criminals? Not a single mine in Papua New Guinea has a Tailings Dam )
The surprise export duty has threatened Argentina's rapid ascent (descent?) as a destination for the world's mining industry. In search of the next metals hot spot to rival Chile or Peru, international mining firms have flocked to Argentina in recent years, spending billions on exploration and mine construction.
Mining investment in Argentina has increased to $1.77-billion (U.S.) in 2007 from $220-million in 2003.
The country promised 30 years of tax stability to mining companies in 1993 and issued exemptions from export duties imposed during the country's financial crisis in 2002 to mines already in production.
Now some of the world's largest mining companies have filed a legal action against the government in a bid to fight the new duties. Xstrata PLC, which controls and operates Alumbrera, Rio Tinto PLC, the owner of a borax mine in Argentina, and AngloGold Ashanti, which has run the Cerro Vanguardia gold mine since 1998, are seeking an injunction preventing the government from collecting the new tax.
(Mining companies are NOTORIOUS for not paying taxes: 10 Things Canada Does Best - What Canada doesn't do best is hold domestic mining companies accountable for the damage they do abroad. , Possible Tax Evasion? Under-declaration of profits by mining companies costs Tanzania US$207 million )
"We continue to be hopeful we will reach a solution through dialogue with the government respecting legislation currently in effect but, in the meantime, it has been necessary for us to protect our short-term interests and we had to commence legal proceedings," Xstrata spokeswoman Emily Russell said.
(Protect their interests is all they care about, not an iota of heed for the opinion of the community in which they operate: Argentine Supreme court upholds Chubut Province ban of cyanide leach mining - local protest crucial to the verdict )
Some miners in Argentina were already paying the duty. Barrick Gold Corp., the world's largest bullion producer, operates the Veladero mine in Argentina and has been paying a "temporary" 5-per-cent export duty on gold production since 2005. Barrick, which is developing the massive Pascua Lama project that straddles the Argentine border with Chile, is not involved in the litigation and is "monitoring" the situation, a company spokesman said.
(In Barrick's case, litigating against a government that it needs permits from isn't a good idea:Barrick Gold Corporation's Pascua Lama Mining Project on Hold - The Perils of Gold Mining in Chile's Border Region - Uncertainty Rattles Shareholders )
Goldcorp does not have any major exploration operations in Argentina. However, the country "was high on its list of countries we would like to expand into," Mr. Miller said.
Exploration around the Alumbrera concession by the mine's partnership has also been put on hold, the Goldcorp executive said, delaying "millions of dollars from being spent on planned exploration."
(And saving billions of dollars of future clean-up costs: Supreme Court Decision Rattles Canadian Mining Industry – Right to Pollute Under Threat – Teck Cominco Execs Vow Fight, say No to Cleaning Environment , $400 Million Taxpayer Financed Superfund Clean-up Effort and Tourism Dollars Revive Idaho Mining Town after 1981 Mine Closure )
Goldcorp has lobbied Ottawa for help and hopes the export tax issue will be raised by MP Ted Menzies in meetings with Argentine officials in Buenos Aires this week.
(Yes, the Canadian Government is stooge of the Canadian Mining Industry: The Canadian Government and Mining Industry)
Toronto's Yamana Gold Inc., which owns 12.5 per cent of Alumbrera and is developing the Gualcamayo mine and several other projects in Argentina, is also watching the situation closely.
(So is Esquel: Yamana Gold Corporation acquires Meridian Gold Inc. owner of the stalled Esquel Gold Mine Project )
"To have sustainability for mining you have to have certainty. You can't change the rules midstream," Peter Marrone, Yamana's chief executive officer, said in an interview.
(And few environmental regulations: "Chile is the best mining jurisdiction in the world... Canada is not a jurisdiction where I would like to develop a mine." says Centenario Copper CEO )
Here is the full article.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Supreme Court Decision Rattles Canadian Mining Industry – Right to Pollute Under Threat – Teck Cominco Execs Vow Fight, say No to Cleaning Environment
A U.S. court action against Teck Cominco for its activities in Canada flies in the face of legal convention, commentators say.
Long arm of US law reaches across the border
After nearly 90 years of belching heavy metal waste into the Columbia River in Trail, B.C., a lead and zinc smelter owned by Teck Cominco Ltd. has become engulfed in a pollution battle that is changing international rules of environmental litigation.
Environmental lawsuits are as regular as rain for mining companies, which make it their business to extract the Earth's mineral riches with toxic chemicals. But what makes the Teck case so unnerving is that a Canadian company accused of contaminating Canadian waters is not having its day in a Canadian court.
(Some would say it's about time:
Canadian Government Urged to Rein in Mining Sector
Mining Misery: Guatemala is one of many countries that has attracted the investment of Canadian Mining Companies – but at what cost to its people?
"Chile is the best mining jurisdiction in the world... Canada is not a jurisdiction where I would like to develop a mine." says Centenario Copper CEO
Corporate rights trump human rights - alleged that Canadian Barrick Gold security forces intentionally buried alive 52 artisanal miners in Tanzania. )
A jurisdictional stretch? You would say yes if you followed the course of cross-border pollution disputes in the past century (using this argument women's voting rights would be a stretch). Traditionally, bilateral pollution disputes have been settled through (cozy) diplomatic channels. Sulphur dioxide emissions from the Trail smelter in the early 1900s (that is an ERA we want to return to?) prompted Canada and the United States to appoint a joint commission to consider allegations that the smelter was damaging the crops of Washington apple growers. In the end, the smelter's then owners agreed (were not compelled) to invest more than $20-million (U.S.) in upgrades to reduce the emissions (how magnanimous).
The commission's resolution became a (unsatisfactory) model for subsequent cross-border pollution disputes. But the Supreme Court of the United States dealt a serious blow to (made a considered decision to end) the diplomatic tradition on Monday when it refused to hear Teck's appeal. Teck argued that a lower court in Washington erred in 2006 when it ruled that the Vancouver company's activities in Canada (so, its okay to poison citizens of another country?) were subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
By letting the decision of Washington's Ninth Circuit Court stand, legal experts say the Supreme Court left companies on both sides of the border vulnerable (so long as they pollute) to the extraterritorial reach of foreign courts. Using the Washington ruling as a precedent, U.S. or Canadian companies seen as the authors (perpetrators) of such cross-border environmental problems as acid rain and declining fish stocks could find themselves facing private litigation in foreign courts, in some cases long after the issues have been addressed (unsatisfactorily) through diplomatic negotiations.
"This decision is going to have a lot of unintended (intended) consequences," said Thomas Campbell, a Houston-based lawyer with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP who leads Teck's litigation team. "We have [(finally) given] ... individuals the right to pull a foreign company into a domestic court . ... As a result of this case, people are now referring to the Canadian and United States border as an artifact (the heavy metals consider it to be)."
With so much at stake (clean water), it is no surprise that a parade of some of North America's most influential legal experts, authorities and business lobbies (who drink bottled?) waded into the case (but not the river). When the company appealed to the Supreme Court, it hired former U.S. solicitor-general Theodore Olson. Backing up the company were a host of Canadian (pro-pollution) business lobby groups. Even the lofty Harvard Law Review sounded the alarm, fretting last year that the Washington court's extraterritorial behaviour "risks creating a precedent that would unilaterally disrupt pollution, comity and friendly trade relations (war with Canada?)" between the countries.
There are those who will say that pollution is a borderless crime and any court that succeeds in holding companies accountable (rather than unaccountable?) for environmental sins is a good court. "We are talking here about a large smelter which was dumping large amounts of waste on a sustained basis. It had a direct and foreseeable impact on our water," said Paul Dayton, a Seattle lawyer with Short Cressman & Burgess who represented the Colville Tribe.
But overlooked in this argument is the long-standing (outmoded) legal principle that litigation targets (wealthy "multinational" corporations) have the right to defend activities on their home turf in their home country (with the most sympathetic mining laws). When companies (poor indigenous tribes) are pulled into foreign courts they are at an immediate disadvantage because they had no influence shaping the relevant legislation and are seen as outsiders by foreign judges or juries (it cuts both ways) .
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Malcolm Ruby, a cross-border litigation expert with Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, predicted the Teck case will prompt "international environmental class actions to take off. This will be the tip of the iceberg. (i.e. there are many such polluters)"
Dennis Mahony, a Torys LLP environmental specialist, said: "This raises the stakes for any company whose (nefarious) activities have a cross-border impact."
How did Teck land in such a mess? The easy answer is that Teck was slow to respond (i.e. noncompliance ~didn't care if people ingested heavy metals) to an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order in 2003 calling for Teck to investigate the alleged U.S. contamination. That left the Colville Tribe free to file a so-called citizen lawsuit forcing the company to comply. (QED) By the time Teck agreed in 2006 to put $20-million in escrow to study river pollution, the tribe's case was already working its way through Washington's courts.
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While the experts debate the jurisdiction ruling, the Teck case now heads back to the lower Washington court to address the merits of the case against the smelter. The company appears to have no interest in settling the case. (after 90 years of indifference, a few more won't matter)"
"It's not over. We have a number of options for arguing our case (none of which involve cleaning the environment)," Mr. Campbell said.
Here is the full article.
Another Mining Industry Classic. (See: Mining Industry Propaganda for more.)
Canada's oil sands - "There is nothing on this planet that compares with the destruction going on there".
FORT CHIPEWYAN, Alberta — Like a great silver snake, the Athabasca River glides though a spongy-wet wilderness of spindly forests, lakes and marshes 650 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border.
Breathe deeply, though, and you catch a whiff of fresh, hot tar. In the river, fish are speckled with shiny, wart-like blisters. And in the tiny Indian village of Fort Chipewyan, people are coming down with leukemia, bile duct cancer and other diseases.
Those who aren’t physically sick are worried sick. Much of their unease is directed upstream at a moonscape of strip mines, tailings ponds and clouds of dust and gases, including climate-warming carbon dioxide.
What’s being clawed from the earth there may surprise you. It’s America’s next tank of gas.
As reserves of crude oil tighten and gas prices soar, the quest for a backup energy source grows more heated. Already, a biofuels industry based on corn is booming. There are dreams of adding switch grass and wood chips to the mix, and perhaps one day running cars on cleaner hydrogen.
In northeast Alberta, though, the race for a stand-in fuel is taking a U-turn, one in which fleets of dinosaur-sized trucks and shovels larger than two-car garages are tearing apart a rich mosaic of woods and wetlands to extract some of the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet — more than two-thirds of which is exported to the United States to be refined into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
All new fuels pose environmental challenges, but Alberta’s proxy petroleum is creating many, from the destruction of migratory waterfowl habitat to rising greenhouse gas emissions and growing concerns about pollution and cancer.
Last month, a new report catalogued industrial contaminants — from arsenic to mercury to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — downstream of the digging zone and concluded that more independent scientific inquiry is urgent.
Jim Law, the spokesman for Alberta’s minister of the environment, disputed the report’s conclusions, saying, “The development of the oil sands does not proceed at the expense of the environment.” But Kevin Timoney, an Alberta ecologist and the report’s author, disagreed.
“These compounds are already at levels sufficient to cause harm, [and] levels are increasing in concentration,” Timoney said. “There is no logical explanation ... other than industry activity.”
The stockpile of energy under Alberta’s swampy woodlands, an estimated 175 billion barrels of oil, is the largest reserve in the Western Hemisphere and the second-largest on Earth, behind Saudi Arabia.
This oil doesn’t slosh into a barrel like conventional petroleum. It clings to dark, gooey layers of sand and clay that look like cookie dough when dug out of the ground. Alberta’s oil isn’t really oil at all, but bitumen, used for canoe patching by early fur traders and more recently for road sealing and paving.
Coaxing bitumen out of sand and clay and upgrading it into synthetic petroleum is so costly and energy-intensive that for years most companies ignored the region.
When crude oil prices climbed over $50 back in 2004, however, companies began rushing to Alberta as if it were a new Persian Gulf. Today, that rush is a stampede.
The road from Edmonton to Fort McMurray — the frontier outpost where the digging starts — thunders with big-rig trucks hauling mining gear. In town, dollars flow so freely some call the place Fort McMoney. Near the airport, a billboard barks out the bonanza spirit: “We have the energy,” it says.
Already, Alberta’s tar sands oil field produces 1.3 million barrels a day, three times more than Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay. By 2016, daily output is expected to rise to 3 million barrels, exceeding the oil production of Venezuela.
Scores of companies are active in the area, from U.S.-based Chevron and ConocoPhillips to homegrown Petro-Canada. This year, projects, expansions and acquisitions totaling more than $50 billion have been announced.
From the air, the footprint of development reveals itself in a tic-tac-toe grid of oil service roads slicing into wild country, in the silver glint of pipelines and heavy equipment.
On the ground, a sign at one of the oldest operations, Syncrude-Canada’s Mildred Lake mine north of Fort McMurray, assures visitors that there is nothing modest about the place.
“Since operations began in 1978, we’ve moved over 1.4 billion tons of overburden,” the sign reads, referring to the rock and soil over bitumen deposits. “This is more dirt than was moved for the Great Wall of China, the Suez Canal, the Great Pyramid of Cheops and the 10 largest dams in the world, combined!”
The disturbance is so extensive that the United Nations Environment Program has placed Alberta’s tar sands oil field on its list of 100 hot spots of environmental change, a roster that includes the Yangtze River Valley, drowned by China’s Three Gorges Dam.
In coming years, oil development is expected to spider-web across a landscape more than three times as large as Lake Tahoe, making the Alberta oil field the largest industrial zone on Earth. Wetlands vital to migratory ducks and geese, trails worn smooth by centuries of wood buffalo and wilderness ponds where loons lift their crazy laughs will be lost.
“There is nothing on this planet that compares with the destruction going on there,” said David Schindler, an ecology professor at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. “If there were a global prize for unsustainable development, the oil sands would be the clear winner.”
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You can sense it in the frustration of biology professor Suzanne Bayley with the U.S. motorists who are fueling the boom.
“What bugs us the most is Americans are not really even attempting to conserve,” said Bayley, who teaches at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. “Why should we destroy our environment for a thousand years for people who are on a binge?”
With 5 percent of the world’s people, the United States burns 44 percent of the world’s gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. No nation plays a bigger role in keeping America on the road than Canada, which exports around 2.2 million barrels of oil a day to the United States, roughly a third of it from Alberta’s tar sands.
Here is the full article.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
United States Supreme Court won't review a $1 Billion Dollar Ruling against Teck Cominco Mining Corporation for Clean-up of Columbia River
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court declined Monday to intervene in an unusual case in which a Canadian company was held subject to the U.S. Superfund law for polluting the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
A federal appeals court last year ruled that Teck Cominco Ltd., based in Vancouver, British Columbia, could have to pay a share of an estimated $1 billion to clean up Lake Roosevelt, a 150-mile stretch of the upper Columbia River behind Grand Coulee Dam.
The Columbia has been polluted for a century with heavy metals and black slag leaching downstream from Teck Cominco's lead and zinc smelter complex in Trail, British Columbia, 10 miles north of the U.S. border and about 135 miles north of Spokane.
The company asked the justices to overturn the appeals court ruling, arguing that the Superfund law does not apply to a Canadian company discharging hazardous waste unless it "arranged" (whereas acts of stupidity are okay?) for the contamination to end up in the United States. The pollution resulted from an "action of nature" (the force of gravity to be specific)— the southward flow of the river from Canada into the United States — the company said in court papers.
Solicitor General Paul Clement advised the court not take case for technical legal reasons. But Clement noted that the company discharged millions of tons of hazardous substances into the river just north of the border for 90 years. Likening the discharges to firing a gun across the border, Clement said that "it was inevitable that the river would carry the pollution directly into the United States."
U.S. and Canadian business interests as well as the British Columbia government urged the court to take the case. Left untouched, the appeals court ruling would complicate international relations and affect trade, they said in several briefs in support of Teck Cominco.
Under orders from provincial government regulators, Teck Cominco stopped discharging slag into the river in 1994 after Canadian studies showed the waste was toxic to fish and aquatic life.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year reached a voluntary settlement with Teck Cominco to study the extent and seriousness of the contamination. The company will pay about $20 million for the study.
(Had this happened in Chile the government would have taken care of it: Chile's Government fines itself for polluting the environment )
Here is the full article.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Bre-X Geologist Says Mine Might Contain Gold - Greatest Fraud in Canadian Mining Industry History Still Making Headlines
[September 17, 2007] TORONTO -- Ending a decade-long silence about the Bre-X scandal, John Felderhof has offered to go back to the company's infamous Indonesian mine to determine whether it contains gold.
"I can only hope that one day someone will go back and re-evaluate the property," the former Bre-X geologist wrote in a Sept. 12 letter, which his Toronto lawyer Joe Groia sent to reporters on Monday. "I remain ready and willing to help in any way that I can."
But Strathcona Minerals Services Ltd. -- which wrote a report blasting Bre-X's mineral testing program and warned of an unprecedented fraud - made "sweeping generalizations" that destroyed any chance to "determine the true extent of the ... deposit" at Bre-X's Busang property, Felderhof said.
Groia backed up his client, saying that Strathcona never tested survey results at the so-called central zone, where local miners were digging when the Canadian lawyer sent a survey crew there about six years ago.
Strathcona's president Graeme Farquharson took exception to Felderhof's comments, arguing that the mine has no real value.
"That's the position we still hold," he said in an interview Monday. "I'm just annoyed that he'd want to stir up the hornet's nest again. He has his liberty. I'm curious as to why he felt the need to issue a statement like this."
Meanwhile, the two-page letter took a swipe at the Ontario Securities Commission and warned that no amount of regulation could have prevented the fraud that wiped away more than $6-billion worth of investors' money.
Felderhof, the only former Bre-X official to ever face criminal charges, was acquitted of insider trading this summer after a trial that dragged on for six years.
"I have always maintained, and now the court has found, that the tampering that took place at [the mine] was 'unprecedented in the history of mining,'" he wrote. "It is my firm belief that no amount of regulation can be put into place to prevent a sophisticated and well-planned fraud.
"I do hope that the next time a case similar to Bre-X comes along, the regulators and the Strathconas in Canada will take a good hard look at the facts before rushing to a hasty judgment, destroying whatever shareholder value might still be saved."
His comments echo those of Justice Peter Hryn, who cleared Felderhof on July 31 of insider trading and issuing false press releases about the amount of gold at Bre-X's Busang property.
In a 594-page decision, Judge Hryn said that the company's top geologist wasn't the only person to miss "red flags" hinting that the gold mine was a hoax.
In his last public statement on July 25, 1997, Felderhof dismissed suggestions that he should have been aware of the so-called red flags.
Thanking his lawyers and defence witnesses for their "courage in testifying on my behalf," Felderhof described the case as a "lonely, lengthy and difficult battle."
Here is the full article.
More on the out of control Canadian Mining Industry: Canadian Mining Industry Run Amok
